She considers me for a moment with those twilight blue eyes, like the apples my family harvest. “Fine.” She slaps her hand to her lap and stiffens her spine. “I can’t say how long ago this was but ... apparently the prince had a litalf lover for a time. A long time. Years. And he was thought to have loved her. It was even whispered in the castle that he once kissed her.”
“So?” I frown.
“Kissing to the dokkalves is like an eternal and public declaration of love—and priority. It’s much more dangerous than a simple ‘I love you’. When a dokkalfreallykisses someone, it means that they are claiming them forever.”
Flashes of the prince’s mouth on mine invade my mind. But as I think on it, he has never actually kissed me, only brushed or pressed his lips against mine, or ghosted a whisper of a kiss over my cheek and jaw.
I don’t know why that deflates me some.
“And...?” I say. “He kissed her, he loved her—so what happened?”
“Well,” she starts, “it was only rumoured that he kissed her. None of the slaves saw it, except some stable hand who’s now gone to another household, but anyway. The prince killed her.” She says it so matter-of-factly that it takes me a moment to understand what she said.
“He... He did what?”
“First, he threw her in the dungeons. Then he ordered her execution—and he was the one to perform it, too. He cut her head off in one swipe of the sword.”
I blink, heart twisting with an awful ache. “Why?”
“She dallied with one of the guards.” She scoffs. “It’s not that you have to worry about, though. Not if you stick to yourself and keep your wits about you. And,” she adds as an afterthought, “don’t get pregnant.”
“Well...” I shove from the window, panic settling in, rattling my flapping hands as I start to pace back and forth on a step. “What the fuck do I do? What if ... What if we have sex and he does gets me pregnant?”
“You’ll be fine,” Terry says with a wave of the hand. “Do you know how many dokkalves and humans—even the kuris—can have children together? If you were somehow magically pregnant, he would just give you the termination tea.”
“That’s not making me feel any better.”
“It’s only stories,” she tells me, as though to make me feel better.
“Horrible ones,” I whisper, gripping onto the bannister and bowing my head. “But really—what happens if I do get pregnant, Terry? If he kills a litalf he loves because she once had an affair, then what does that mean for me? He won’t hesitate to cut my throat.”
“You could ask him to pull out. I’m sure he will, anyway. Or!” She adds so excitedly that I whip my face to her. “Or,” she adds, a smile on her face, “he’s taking the seed!”
“The what?”
“It’s what the male dokkalves take to stop them from ... I don’t know, it makes them unable to make children or something. A lot of them take it. Hell, I bet he’s stocked up on the seed for a full two centuries’ worth.”
“So my options are suffer my sickness and hope it doesn’t kill me—” Since it is getting a whole lot worse in this part of the realm (something to do with the time shift, I guess). “—or lay with the sort of creature who kills lovers. I’m not at all comforted.”
“I’m not Sira,” she tells me, her tone dropping into something exhausted. “I’m not going to talk you out of it and tell you to stay away from him. There’s an opportunity for a bargain here.”
“I made the bargain already.” I bite my bottom lip. “And I added that at the end of my term here, he must take me home.”
“Then he can’t kill you,” she points out with a dark smile.
I blink up at her.
I hadn’t thought about that. It wasn’t my intention when I made the bargain—but it sure as hell should have been.
“He can’t kill me,” I echo with a nod. “Not for two months at least. And he does have to take me home ...andgive me the white powder every time he touches me.”
“All you have to do is shut your eyes, grit your teeth and bear it.” Terry shrugs, falling back on the steps.
She stuffs another sweet into her mouth.
I lean against the wall, staring out the dirt-grimed window.
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